AE Land and AI Issues [OUTDATED]

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

I thought a major (real life) problem with defending in Bataan instead of manila was the mountain of supplies, etc. in Manila?

Yes..., the supplies MacArthur refused to permit being moved to Bataan because it might look "defeatist." Wasn't until the Japanese landed at Linguyan Gulf and broke his defense that he started making serious attempts to shift supply to the penninsula. Weeks wasted, and immediate "half-rations" for his men when they got there. The twit!

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Good question there are now 2 types of city terrain with different bonuses to defence and the ability to control more supply will help here as well so I expect it to be 50:50 where the allies defend.

Just to elaborate on what Andy has said - there are two types of "city" terrain in AE: "Light urban" and "Heavy urban" which provide defence multipliers of x2 and x4 respectively. Manila is classified as "Light urban", so provides x2 defence for terrain in AE.

Andrew

[spence]

Yes..., the supplies MacArthur refused to permit being moved to Bataan because it might look "defeatist." Wasn't until the Japanese landed at Linguyan Gulf and broke his defense that he started making serious attempts to shift supply to the penninsula. Weeks wasted, and immediate "half-rations" for his men when they got there. The twit!

Actually I think it was more the peacetime Army mindset at work. There was some sort of Philippine law restricting the movement of rice between provinces. The responsible officers were avoiding lawsuits[8|]

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse
Jim,

Thanks. Yes, it was organized as a slightly-smaller-than-standard infantry division in 1943 still using some aspects of the cav TO&E including, I know 4 artillery battalions and a tank company, but exactly how much smaller was the infantry component is mostly what I would like to know. In 1945 the division reorganized as a standard infantry division.

I found a little more detail on the makeup of the 1st Cavalry Division, here’s the link:

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/ ... 1-plan.htm

And here’s the specific text found in the Planning the Reconnaissance in Force section:

“Although the 1st Cavalry Division was dismounted for operations in the Pacific, it retained its organization as a cavalry unit with two brigades, each made up of two reinforced regiments. In addition to supporting units, each regiment comprised two squadrons of three rifle troops and a heavy weapons troop.”

Not a lot of detail, but it does state it maintained the original organization of the rifle troops from its mounted days.

Jim

Edit: One more source: http://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/1stcavalry.htm

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: spence

Yes..., the supplies MacArthur refused to permit being moved to Bataan because it might look "defeatist." Wasn't until the Japanese landed at Linguyan Gulf and broke his defense that he started making serious attempts to shift supply to the penninsula. Weeks wasted, and immediate "half-rations" for his men when they got there. The twit!

Actually I think it was more the peacetime Army mindset at work. There was some sort of Philippine law restricting the movement of rice between provinces. The responsible officers were avoiding lawsuits[8|]

Can't quite buy this Spence. MacArthur was Generalissamo of the Philippine Army as well as US Commander of the US forces in the Philippines. And the military had accumulated large stocks of supplies for just such an occurance. Unfortunately Mac had it stored all over central Luzon to support his forward defence scheme (a pipedream given the actual state of training and equipment of his new Philippines Army Forces). I don't think local legislation had anything to do with where the Army stored it's supplies.

The "Peacetime Army Mindset" you refer too had more to do with Mac's failure to "confiscate" useful cargoes from ships in Manilla, and reluctance to order the destruction of civilian stores and property (such as oil) to prevent the Japanese from getting them. Much of this was very much a "last minute effort" and ineffective.

[VSWG]

Right now aviation support squads need no support. Will this be changes in AE, or will all Aviation Regiments lose their support squads, since they are not needed?

[NormS3]

I agree, but completely understand where Andy Mac is coming from. But thoughts for the future. [:)]

[msieving1]

In US and British service, air squadrons were the smallest air unit with integrated aviation support.  Squadrons would include a ground echelon of 200 or so men to provide maintenance, refueling, and arming of aircraft.  The ground echelons could get separated from the aircraft (for example, the ground echelons for the 27th BG were in the Philippines on 7 Dec 1941, but the planes, A-24s, and pilots were in transit and ended up in Australia).
 
In the past, WITP hasn't included ground echelons of air units, but has put aviation support in base units or the rather abstract aviation regiments.  With the limited number of slots available for LCUs, I don't think there was much alternative.
 
Will there be enough slots to include ground echelons for aircraft squadrons?  If not for each squadron, maybe at the group level (wings in CW terms)?

[anarchyintheuk]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: spence

Yes..., the supplies MacArthur refused to permit being moved to Bataan because it might look "defeatist." Wasn't until the Japanese landed at Linguyan Gulf and broke his defense that he started making serious attempts to shift supply to the penninsula. Weeks wasted, and immediate "half-rations" for his men when they got there. The twit!

Actually I think it was more the peacetime Army mindset at work. There was some sort of Philippine law restricting the movement of rice between provinces. The responsible officers were avoiding lawsuits[8|]

Can't quite buy this Spence. MacArthur was Generalissamo of the Philippine Army as well as US Commander of the US forces in the Philippines. And the military had accumulated large stocks of supplies for just such an occurance. Unfortunately Mac had it stored all over central Luzon to support his forward defence scheme (a pipedream given the actual state of training and equipment of his new Philippines Army Forces). I don't think local legislation had anything to do with where the Army stored it's supplies.

The "Peacetime Army Mindset" you refer too had more to do with Mac's failure to "confiscate" useful cargoes from ships in Manilla, and reluctance to order the destruction of civilian stores and property (such as oil) to prevent the Japanese from getting them. Much of this was very much a "last minute effort" and ineffective.

Supplies were stored all over central Luzon because that was where they were stored. WPO-3 had divided Luzon into several areas and depots had been constructed to supply each. The plan contemplated retreat to Bataan, but didn't specify the amount of time required to displace the supplies nor was enough attention paid to how they would be displaced. MacArthur's forward defense strategy was only approved in the first week of November, 1941. Hardly enough time, given Phillipine transportation assets, to either forward Bataan's supplies or displace all of the supplies of the Luzon depots to Bataan, assuming that storage space was available.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk
Supplies were stored all over central Luzon because that was where they were stored. WPO-3 had divided Luzon into several areas and depots had been constructed to supply each. The plan contemplated retreat to Bataan, but didn't specify the amount of time required to displace the supplies nor was enough attention paid to how they would be displaced. MacArthur's forward defense strategy was only approved in the first week of November, 1941. Hardly enough time, given Phillipine transportation assets, to either forward Bataan's supplies or displace all of the supplies of the Luzon depots to Bataan, assuming that storage space was available.

Yes and no. Let's say Mac accepted reality instead of wasting his time and efforts trying to get approval for his forward defense scheme (which might have been reasonable given another 8 months to organize and train the Philippine Army---but was idiotic given it's half-mobilized, partially-equipped, and semi-trained state in December). Spending those months planning and preparing to execute the original plans (instead of waiting until three weeks AFTER the war had started to revert to it) would certainly have made a decernable difference in Bataan's defense.

[Andy Mac]

Oh now msieving1 you just hit upon an issue that we went round and round and round and round on in the land team CW Av support !!!

Lots of debate on this one [:D][:D][:D]

I ended up for CW as opposed to US and Japanese with a 4 level Aviation Support system.

Lvl 1 and biggest Air Group Base Forces combined arms units with AA (equivalent to a LAA and HAA Regt in each one), radar , garrison, RE field park coy, support etc etc for each CW 'Group' HQ you get 1 central Base Force with 75 AV Support (or it could be 90 I would need to go check) - I think RAF gets 6 of these, RAAF 2 and RNZAF 1 basically bases designed to act as nodes for operations of a series of subsidiary fields

Lvl 2 a series of historical RAF, RAAF and RNZAF Wings each with 75 Av Support and NO support or other units - these replace the old Aviation Regts in CW terms they are significanlty smaller 75 v 250 AV Support but you get more of them (I assumed 4 RAF Sqns plus a recon or transport flight per Wing).

Lvl 3 Normal base forces with 16 or 32 AV Support (1 or 2 Sqns) and with a small garrison, support and AA echelon - broadly these forces are 1/3 or less than the Group base forces especially in AA assets these are the most common base force type in mid war and are general purpose 'utility' base forces.

Lvl 4 What I call outpost base forces a few AAMG's if they are lucky, a platoon of ISF troopers/Dutch Militia/NZ Can or Aus Militia  enough AV support to cope with a flight of planes from a dirt strip - these vary a lot and are by far the most common base force type at start there are about 25 in India, 10 or so in Burma and most of the DEI, Malaya base forces are of this type each with bespoke addons where appropriate (there is one lvl 4 base force in one of the Dutch islands with 2 attached improvised AFV's (trucks with a bit of metal stuck on front and an LMG on top) where I have the data to give these small units non TOE addons I have done so.

Typically the lvl 4's will be destroyed in the Japanese advance or can amalgamte to form lvl 3's but the sheer number of new bases requiring a little av support in a rear area will I think mean that a lot of these small detachments will persist for a while.

Just so I am clear lets take 221 Group RAF it will have a Group HQ, a Group Base Force and 2 - 5 Aviation Wings plus it may have attached 1 or 2 small type 3 or 4 Base Forces for smaller strips it may also have attached AA Regts .

Whereas 9 RAAF Gp will have fewer aviation wings but it has a few more small base forces and  several construction squadrons attached.

Andy

[Andy Mac]

ps if you disagree with where we ended up you can make a small 16 AV Supp unit for every air sqn thats micromanagement hell to me  which is why we stuck at Wings but you can do it you have the slots........

[asdicus]

Would the AE land team be able to look at the unrealistic resistance of allied land units when they are completely out of supply ( ie food and ammo) ?

In all my pbm games as the allies (using CHS) I concentrate my philippine army at manila - knowing that resistance will continue long after manila has run out of supplies. I would challenge any ww2 historian to show examples when allied troops (though not japanese) continued to fight after they had run out of food and especially ammo. The result is very unrealistic battles (as long as the base does not fall - manila holds out because of the urban terrain bonus). Some type of morale check to surrender when supplies are gone would sort out this problem - is this very hard to program ?

Sorry if the question has already been answered elsewhere but I could find nothing mentioned on it.

[Andy Mac]

Short answer is no plans to change it although as said prviosuly manila is now light urban so only x 2 defence value and I expect more defenders to move to bataan now but we shall see.

There are to many implications to the game engine to mess about with how units surrender.

The penalties for out of supply are already extreme ranging from 25% reduction for small out of supplies down  to 75% if totally out of supply.

There is also a morale check which can reduce it by another 50% so minimum undisrupted defence if the unit fails a morale check (which it will do as its supply runs out) is 12.5% of base AV that still to me feels ok and we have no plans to change it.

Andy

[Nomad]

Andy Mac, aren't you supposed to be testing or something? Why do we see you all over the furums? [:D][8D]

[Andy Mac]

I am multi tasking trying to understand bits of the code relating to HQ's and generally playing with all the database changing stuff i.e. TOE upgrades, unit renaming, disbands, testing all that stuff etc etc.

[:D][:D][:D][:D]

[Speedysteve]

Once more can't recall if this has been covered:
 
Can you elaborate on how the Ground Combat model will work? Is x unit still going to methodically bombard every other enemy unit in the same hex or will thing work differently like - CCA of 29th US Arm Div is on the west side of that particular 60 miles hex and the enemy units facing it are 162nd IJA Rgt of so and so Division. Etc. As in will combat be more specific and detailed like that?
 
Secondly how are the casualty ratio's of combat going to be covered? Historically the Japanese lost many more men vs the Allies during most battles/campaigns after mid-1942. I can't think of any major island invasion that the US conducted for example where the Japanese didn't lose at least double the US did in manpower.
 
Can gas be used in combat?

[Andy Mac]

OK no problem.

No we are not changing rewriting or redoing land combat - it is out of our scope.

Mechanics will be the same as stock with a few tweaks possible around HQ's

The biggest changes will occur around movement and ZOC but the mechanics remain the same.

Casualty ratios stay as they are no plans to change this its a tad deceptive in game as all the casualty reports tell you is number of devices disabled and detroyed x load cost of unit.

No gas

Andy

[msieving1]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

ps if you disagree with where we ended up you can make a small 16 AV Supp unit for every air sqn thats micromanagement hell to me  which is why we stuck at Wings but you can do it you have the slots........

That works for me. Thanks.

[Blackhorse]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Oh now msieving1 you just hit upon an issue that we went round and round and round and round on in the land team CW Av support !!!

Lots of debate on this one [:D][:D][:D]

I ended up for CW as opposed to US and Japanese with a 4 level Aviation Support system.

Lvl 1 and biggest Air Group Base Forces combined arms units with AA (equivalent to a LAA and HAA Regt in each one), radar , garrison, RE field park coy, support etc etc for each CW 'Group' HQ you get 1 central Base Force with 75 AV Support (or it could be 90 I would need to go check) - I think RAF gets 6 of these, RAAF 2 and RNZAF 1 basically bases designed to act as nodes for operations of a series of subsidiary fields

Lvl 2 a series of historical RAF, RAAF and RNZAF Wings each with 75 Av Support and NO support or other units - these replace the old Aviation Regts in CW terms they are significanlty smaller 75 v 250 AV Support but you get more of them (I assumed 4 RAF Sqns plus a recon or transport flight per Wing).

Lvl 3 Normal base forces with 16 or 32 AV Support (1 or 2 Sqns) and with a small garrison, support and AA echelon - broadly these forces are 1/3 or less than the Group base forces especially in AA assets these are the most common base force type in mid war and are general purpose 'utility' base forces.

Lvl 4 What I call outpost base forces a few AAMG's if they are lucky, a platoon of ISF troopers/Dutch Militia/NZ Can or Aus Militia enough AV support to cope with a flight of planes from a dirt strip - these vary a lot and are by far the most common base force type at start there are about 25 in India, 10 or so in Burma and most of the DEI, Malaya base forces are of this type each with bespoke addons where appropriate (there is one lvl 4 base force in one of the Dutch islands with 2 attached improvised AFV's (trucks with a bit of metal stuck on front and an LMG on top) where I have the data to give these small units non TOE addons I have done so.

Typically the lvl 4's will be destroyed in the Japanese advance or can amalgamte to form lvl 3's but the sheer number of new bases requiring a little av support in a rear area will I think mean that a lot of these small detachments will persist for a while.

Just so I am clear lets take 221 Group RAF it will have a Group HQ, a Group Base Force and 2 - 5 Aviation Wings plus it may have attached 1 or 2 small type 3 or 4 Base Forces for smaller strips it may also have attached AA Regts .

Whereas 9 RAAF Gp will have fewer aviation wings but it has a few more small base forces and several construction squadrons attached.

Andy

US Base Forces are similar to the CW, with a few twists.

The 270-Squad Uber-Aviation Regiments from stock and CHS are gone. US Aviation regiments (including four Marine Air Wings) now have 90 support squads each.

There are a few static base forces with large amounts of aviation support at start -- Los Angeles, San Francisco, March Field, etc.

Otherwise, there are three types of US Base Forces "Army Air Force" (USAAF), "Army" (USA), and "Navy" (USN). Unsurprisingly, USAAF Base Forces have the most aviation support, followed by the Navy, then the Army. Army Base Forces can only support a single full-strength squadron.

At the beginning of the war, there were battalion-sized US Navy civilian contractor base forces (mostly engineers, but small air support as well) on several Pacific islands. These are included in AE. They disband in a few months.